* The Fed is on track to trim its bond-buying program for the second time in six weeks as a lackluster December jobs report failed to diminish the central bank's expectations for solid U.S. economic growth this year.

* President Barack Obama's sagging approval ratings and the rocky health-law rollout are expanding the map of competitive Senate races this year, giving Republicans new hope of capturing seats in states that the president carried in 2012.

* China's growth prospects this year depend on the gains it can chalk up from exports and the pains that come from trying to remake the world's No. 2 economy. China is one of the most powerful engines of global growth, but one that no longer operates at full throttle. On Monday, Beijing reported that its gross domestic product last year grew 7.7 percent, matching 2012's rate. China economists generally forecast economic growth of somewhere between 7 percent and 8 percent this year, too.

* Iran would have to remove 15,000 centrifuge machines and take other drastic measures to forge a comprehensive nuclear agreement with the West, according to a report by a U.S. think tank that drew from conversations with senior U.S. officials.

* KKR & Co and Affinity Equity Partners have agreed to sell South Korea's Oriental Brewery back to Anheuser-Busch InBev for $5.8 billion in the largest deal on record allowing a private equity firm to exit from an Asian investment.

* PSA Peugeot Citroën is moving closer to a 3 billion euros ($4.06 billion) transformative deal with a Chinese partner and the French government that will hinge on whether private investors have appetite for shares in an unprofitable and cash-bleeding car maker exposed to cutthroat competition in Europe.

* Deutsche Bank AG's surprise 1 billion euros ($1.35 billion) fourth-quarter loss suggests that a new phase of banking cleanups is getting under way in Europe, a likely precursor to other European lenders absorbing financial hits.

* Royal Dutch Shell is selling its stake in an Australian natural gas project, the oil company's first disposal since it issued a rare profit warning last week. Shell said it has agreed to sell its 8 percent equity interest in the Wheatstone-Iago gas field, which is operated by U.S.-based Chevron Corp, and a 6.4 percent interest in the Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia for $1.14 billion in cash to state-owned Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co.

* China's Lenovo Group Ltd is in talks to buy International Business Machines Corp.'s low-end server business, a person familiar with the matter said, reviving negotiations that fell apart last year over valuation.

* A cross-border buyout that once valued Cooper Tire & Rubber Co at $2.5 billion has now devolved into a court battle over as little as a few hundred million dollars. Cooper officially terminated its sale to India's Apollo Tyres Ltd Monday after months of delay in which Apollo sought to cut the $35 per share price.

* Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel is calling to adopt chip-based credit-card technology to thwart theft. But the debate was different a decade ago, when Target pulled the plug on a $40 million program that did just that.

* Investors will be paying close attention to Samsung Electronics Co's earnings this week for any signs of weakness in the smartphone market and to see whether the company's streak of record results is coming to an end.

* The fiery tit-for-tat that erupted in court last week between Apple Inc and a court-appointed lawyer overseeing the company's e-book pricing shined a light on something that has annoyed corporations for years: compliance monitors.

* Needing to generate revenue, Twitter is moving to capitalize on the fact that its user base is more racially diverse than U.S. Internet users as a whole.

* Senior Argentine officials met with representatives of the Paris Club on Monday in a bid to jump start negotiations to settle Argentina's long-standing debt with the club of creditor nations.

FT

Airbus Group is expected to challenge British eurosceptics and make a case in favour of UK's membership of the European Union. The aerospace company told the Financial Times that the UK as part of the EU is an economic model that works "extremely well".

Discount retailer Poundlands and Pets at Home are expected to float by early February, sources told the Financial Times. Poundlands may seek a valuation of 700 million pounds to 800 million pounds, while Pets at Home may be valued at 1.5 billion pounds.

WM Morrison suspended group treasurer Paul Coyle, arrested in December by the Financial Conduct Authority in connection with an insider trading case, according to sources. Coyle has not been charged for any offence as yet.

The Financial Reporting Council will probe auditor KPMG's book-keeping at the Co-operative Bank, which has been hit by a capital shortfall of 1.5 billion pounds and a drugs scandal involving its ex-chairman.

Off licence group Conviviality Retail's chief executive Diana Hunter said minimum pricing is expected to create a "level playing field" for off licences against supermarkets, and that she did not expect the government to change its stance from an earlier rejected plan for a price floor in alcoholic beverages last year.

NYT

* Europe lacks a vibrant market for corporate bonds issued by smaller, riskier companies, making European companies more dependent on bank credit than American businesses.

* The World Economic Forum, for which the cost of membership and a ticket to the annual meeting is more than $70,000, is both admired and derided as a velvet-rope club for the 1 percent of the 1 percent. However, the leaders of some of the largest and most transformative companies are demonstrating, with their absence, the difficulty of convening a global conversation with all the main stakeholders.

* Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday that it would sell its minority interest in an Australian liquefied natural gas project to the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company for about $1.1 billion.

* Waste Control Specialists has a monopoly: as aging nuclear reactors retire, their most radioactive steel, concrete and other components must be shipped for burial somewhere.

* Account information stolen during the Target security breach is now being divided up and sold off regionally, a South Texas police chief said on Monday following the arrest of two Mexican citizens who the authorities say arrived at the border with 96 fraudulent credit cards.

* Bixi, the Canadian company that designs and builds bicycles and supporting technology for bike-sharing systems around the world, including those in New York and London, sought bankruptcy protection on Monday.

* Weixin, a fast-growing social messaging app from the Chinese Internet company Tencent, is no mere copy of any existing service, and its success may thwart Facebook'S ambitions in China. Weixin, a highly addictive social networking tool that allows smartphone users to send messages and share news, photos, videos and web links, much like America's WhatsApp, or Line, a Japanese communications and messaging app.

* Hotels are competing with one another to create luxury suites for the extremely wealthy, who are willing to pay five-figure nightly rates. In New York, the race to capture the highest end of the market continues. In November, the Mandarin Oriental, New York, opened a 3,300-square-foot suite that includes floor-to-ceiling windows and a dining room that seats 10; its rate is $28,000 a night.

* A 60-second Chobani commercial - in the first Super Bowl appearance for the No. 1 brand of Greek yogurt - is scheduled for the third quarter. Two brands of Greek-style yogurt, Chobani and Dannon Oikos, have bought commercial time during the game.

* Some farmers are raising their pigs more humanely in wide open spaces, instead of tight quarters, and selling them to restaurants and grocers increasingly interested in how animals are treated.

Canada

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

* Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has made backing Israel a governing credo, used a historic speech to the Knesset to lay out the case for his staunch support - insisting it is not only a "moral imperative" but also strategically important to democracies around the world.

* The pace of new oil-sands development should be slowed so governments can focus on an infrastructure shortage in Fort McMurray, the region's ex-MP says. Brian Jean resigned this month as the Conservative member of Parliament for Fort McMurray-Athabasca, and says now the most pressing issues facing his community are largely out of federal hands.

Reports in the business section:

* BlackBerry Ltd shares rose more than 8 percent on Monday, after the smartphone company received a vote of confidence from the U.S. Department of Defense. The government agency says about 80,000 BlackBerrys will be deployed on its new mobile device management system by the end of this month.

* A sluggish global economy and stuttering recovery are among the factors that trimmed Bombardier Inc's aircraft order book and total number of plane deliveries last year. Montreal-based Bombardier Aerospace said on Monday that it received orders for 388 planes, net of cancellations, in 2013, compared with 481 orders in the previous year.

NATIONAL POST

* Prime Minister Stephen Harper Monday warned that a dangerous new form of anti-Semitism has emerged and said the globe has a moral and strategic objective to rally around Israel as a haven for Jews.

* Conservative MP Rob Anders is trying to put the word "rape" back into the Criminal Code, seeking to end the ambiguity that some feminists agree is minimizing the severity of sexual assault in the public's perception.

FINANCIAL POST

* Target Corp is warning its Canadian customers that a massive security breach at the retailer over the holiday season may have led to their personal information being stolen.

* Falling bonds yields could push mortgage rates lower in coming weeks as banks compete in the spring housing market, traditionally the strongest real estate period of the year.

China

SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS

- The Shenzhen Stock Exchange warned investors against "stir frying" newly-listed stocks as the first batch of companies debuts on the exchange following a year-long hiatus of initial public offerings.

- Bank of Communications said it plans to raise up to 40 billion yuan ($6.61 billion) by selling debt in domestic and overseas markets in a bid to replenish capital.

CHINA BUSINESS NEWS

- Nearly 1,000 officials in China's environmental protection system were punished between January 2012 and June 2013 for violating rules or breaking laws, according to the government.

PEOPLE'S DAILY

- During a meeting with Boeing Vice Chairman Ray Conner, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said the country would deepen economic reforms and strive to create an open, transparent and fair environment for foreign investors.

SHANGHAI DAILY

- The Shanghai Film Group Corp is in talks with Marvel Entertainment, owned by Walt Disney Co, for a new Chinese superhero film that will revolve around the adventures of a Chinese terra-cotta warrior, said Ren Zhonglun, president of the group.

Britain

The Telegraph

GOVERNMENT TOLD AIRPORTS COMMISSION NOT TO REPORT UNTIL AFTER GENERAL ELECTION

Ministers told the body investigating where to build a new runway not to deliver its findings until after the 2015 General Election, MPs are told, as the Airports Commission's chairman accuses Boris Johnson of "vulgar abuse".

CO-OP PULLS SALE OF GENERAL INSURANCE ARM

The Co-operative Group has opted to hold onto its general insurance business, 10 months after putting it up for sale. The decision was made as the mutual no longer needs the money the sale could have brought in, following a revision of the plans to fill the Co-op Bank's 1.5 billion pound black hole.

The Guardian

FAT FACE SET FOR STOCK MARKET FLOTATION

The casual fashion chain Fat Face is set for a stock market flotation in the first half of this year after appointing two advisers. The retailer, which is chaired by former Marks & Spencer boss Stuart Rose, has hired Citi and Jefferies to sound out potential investors as it seeks a London listing, with March the earliest likely date.

MORRISONS EXECUTIVE ARRESTED IN INSIDER TRADING INVESTIGATION

Morrisons' group treasurer and head of tax is under investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority over allegations relating to the trading of shares in Ocado before a tie-up was announced between the companies. Paul Coyle was arrested in December in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and was taken in for questioning in connection with alleged insider dealing and market abuse.

The Times

BRITAIN'S RECOVERY FASTEST OF ALL - IMF

Britain's economy is bouncing back faster than any major trading nation, the International Monetary Fund will say on Tuesday. Underlining the strength of the recovery, the Washington-based fund is set to raise its forecast for the UK economy for the second time in less than four months, lifting Britain from one of the world's laggards to among its fastest growing developed countries.

"BLACK HOLE" SPARKS CLOSE SCRUTINY OF CO-OP BANK AUDITS

The accountancy watchdog has opened an investigation into KPMG's audits of the Co-operative Bank in the years leading up to the lender's collapse. The Financial Reporting Council said on Monday that it was examining the "Big Four" firm's audits up to and including 2012 but did not say how far back its investigation would go.

The Independent

UKFI SEEKS CUT-PRICE DEAL ON NEW LLOYDS SALE

The agency which manages taxpayers' stake in Lloyds Banking Group is attempting to secure a knockdown price from City bankers vying to work on a share sale that will return it fully to the private sector. Sky News understands that UK Financial Investments has asked investment banks in recent days to present fee proposals for executing a sale of part or all of the government's remaining 20 billion pound stake in Lloyds.

IMF UPGRADES UK GROWTH FORECAST ABOVE RIVALS The International Monetary Fund is on the brink of upgrading its growth forecast for the UK more than any other major economy, Sky News has learnt. The Fund is poised to increase its projection for UK growth in 2014 from 1.9 percent to 2.4 percent. Although the Fund will also lift its forecasts for world economic growth, the UK upgrade is significantly stronger.

Fly on the Wall 7:00 AM Market Snapshot

ECONOMIC REPORTS

No market-moving domestic economic reports are scheduled today.

ANALYST RESEARCH

Upgrades

AAR Corp. (AIR) upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit SuisseAlcoa (AA) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorganAllscripts (MDRX) upgraded to Neutral from Sell at B. RileyBloomin' Brands (BLMN) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorganBoston Scientific (BSX) upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at Piper JaffrayBurger King (BKW) upgraded to Conviction Buy from Buy at GoldmanCentury Aluminum (CENX) upgraded to Overweight from Underweight at JPMorganComerica (CMA) upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at Keefe BruyetteGap (GPS) upgraded to Buy from Underperform at Sterne AgeeInteliquent (IQNT) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond JamesMotorola Solutions (MSI) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at CitigroupNVIDIA (NVDA) upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at EvercoreQuintiles (Q) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at GoldmanSasol (SSL) upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at BarclaysSchlumberger (SLB) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit SuisseSeagate (STX) upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan StanleySteven Madden (SHOO) upgraded to Buy from Hold at BB&TStratasys (SSYS) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit SuisseTESARO (TSRO) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO CapitalWestern Digital (WDC) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at BMO Capital

Downgrades

3D Systems (DDD) downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit SuisseAEGON (AEG) downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at HSBCApple (AAPL) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Societe GeneraleCovance (CVD) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at GoldmanExxon Mobil (XOM) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/MerrillFireEye (FEYE) downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorganM&T Bank (MTB) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond JamesMechel (MTL) downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JPMorganNationstar (NSM) downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at FBR CapitalNoble Corp. (NE) downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Morgan StanleySkechers (SKX) downgraded to Hold from Buy at BB&TSolarCity (SCTY) downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorganStarbucks (SBUX) downgraded to Buy from Conviction Buy at GoldmanT. Rowe Price (TROW) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at CitigroupTJX (TJX) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Sterne AgeeTarget (TGT) downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Cowen

Initiations

ARAMARK (ARMK) initiated with a Neutral at GoldmanARAMARK (ARMK) initiated with an Outperform at Credit SuisseARAMARK (ARMK) initiated with an Outperform at RW BairdARAMARK (ARMK) initiated with an Outperform at Wells FargoARAMARK (ARMK) initiated with an Overweight at JPMorganBasic Energy (BAS) initiated with an Outperform at Imperial CapitalCatchMark Timber (CTT) initiated with a Buy at StifelCatchMark Timber (CTT) initiated with an Outperform at RW BairdHilton Worldwide (HLT) initiated with a Buy at CitigroupHilton Worldwide (HLT) initiated with a Buy at Deutsche BankHilton Worldwide (HLT) initiated with a Market Perform at Wells FargoHilton Worldwide (HLT) initiated with an Outperform at Credit SuisseHilton Worldwide (HLT) initiated with an Overweight at JPMorganSPX Corp. (SPW) re-initiated with an Overweight at BarclaysTurkcell (TKC) initiated with an Overweight at HSBC

It looks as though trouble in building again in the world of the Euro.

However the story has progressed in 2014 and after treading water for a bit Eonia moved to 0.21% on the 14th of January then 0.3% and then 0.343% and the latest reading was 0.359%. Now whilst in itself an interest-rate of 0.359% remains very low it is above the ECB’s rate and it is right at the beginning of the interest-rate maturity curve which is where the central banks power to influence interest-rates should be at its highest.